As we enter a new era of politics, we hope to see that Obama has the courage to fight the policies that Progressives hate. Will he have the fortitude to turn the economic future of America to help the working man? Or will he turn out to be just a pawn of big money, as he seems to be right now.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Campaign has one too many ClintonsGene Lyons

Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008

In this time of strife among Democrats, it’s good to know that so manyof the nation’s deepest political thinkers have the party’s interests atheart. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, former Reagan speech writerPeggy Noonan laments that “the Clintons are tearing the [Democratic]party apart. It will not be the same after this.” True, the same columncontends that “George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party,” butthat’s for another day. In The Washington Post, Robert Novak warns thatthe primary contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama “is fraughtwith peril for the Democratic party coalition because it threatens toalienate its essential African American component.” That would breakNovak’s adamantine heart. On MSNBC, the brows of former Florida GOPCongressman Joe Scarborough and one-time “morality czar” (and casinohabitué) Bill Bennett are permanently furrowed. On the same network,virtually every pundit who discussed the South Carolina primary did soin racial, or, if you prefer, demographic, terms. The Washington Post’sestimable African American columnist Eugene Robinson started on theevening of the New Hampshire primary. He wondered aloud if Clinton’ssurprise victory resulted from the “Bradley effect,” i.e., white votersspeaking well of a black candidate, but yielding to racist impulses inthe darkness of the voting booth.

(Uh, oh, “darkness.” Does the word indicate a hidden bias? A perverseneed to associate blackness with evil? Altogether too manyimpressionable college students have been trained in this kind oflinguistic alchemy, much as they were once encouraged to find hidden“symbolic” phalluses in the novels of Jane Austen. Recently, TheAmerican Prospect’s Web site entertained a passionate debate about acolumnist’s “racist” description of Obama as “a fog of a man.” Fog, see,indicates not fuzziness or vague outlines, but darkness, ergo....

At this level of absurdity, honest debate becomes impossible.“Identity,” crudely construed, is all, and all is identity. Everypolitical statement constitutes an affirmation of group loyalty.“Speaking as an African American gay woman” or “As a long-married whiteman....” —that’s supposed to be the end of the story. To disagree constitutes bigotry. No safe metaphors exist.)

Everything about Obama’s personal story stands in opposition to ethnicgroupthink. It’s a repudiation of Americanism, one he denounces often.But (like most of us) he has not always been perfectly consistent. Hewasn’t in South Carolina. Many of his supporters, particularly among themedia, want to have it both ways in pursuit of the great goal ofhumiliating Hillary and Bill Clinton. For the same reason that Noonanand Novak are crying crocodile tears, it’s a dangerously divisivestrategy.

Let’s pass over the ensuing humbug over Hillary Clinton’s MLK/LBJremarks, the “fairy tale” business and surrogates’ references to Obama’syouthful drug use. (Drugs are an inherently black problem? In theU.S.A.? Who knew? Has there been a presidential candidate since 1992whose personal drug use wasn’t an issue? OK, Bob Dole. Anybody else?)

Harkening to a theme that pundits had pushed since New Hampshire, MSNBC broke down South Carolina’s exit polls by race even before actualresults came in. Every newspaper account I read stressed Obama’s winning80 percent of the African American vote.

On TV, the usual talking heads—Chris Matthews, Howard Fineman, MargaretCarlson et al. —were partying like it was January 1998, when the MonicaLewinsky story broke and the Clinton presidency was presumed DOA. Sosomebody sticks a camera in Bill’s face, asks him an insulting question,and he reminds them that Jesse Jackson won the South Carolina primarytwice, but never the nomination.

That set off racial sensitivity alarms throughout the media and evencertain normally more sensible precincts of the liberal blogosphere.Bill Clinton had played the race card! Hands were wrung. Lamentationsfilled the air. Because as we all know, Jackson (who supports Obama)exists in only one dimension, blackness; therefore, any/all referencesto his political career constitute bigotry. Everybody else can spendhours parsing racial demographics, but not Bill Clinton. Except Jackson himself didn’t object. Neither did Obama. I’m with CongressionalQuarterly columnist Craig Crawford, who told Joe Scarborough: “I reallythink the evidence-free bias against the Clintons in the media borderson mental illness. I mean, I think when Dr. Phil gets done with Britney,he ought to go to Washington and stage an intervention at the NationalPress Club.... [W]e’ve gotten into a situation where if you try to be fair to the Clintons, if you try to be objective, if you try to say,‘Well, where’s the evidence of racism in the Clinton campaign?’ you’reaccused of being a naïve shill for the Clintons.” But I’d also say this:Somebody needs to put the Big Dog back on the porch. His attacks onObama are unbecoming in a former president; people are tired of theClinton melodrama; and the bigger he looms, the smaller Hillary looks.

—–––––•–––––—Free-lance columnist Gene Lyons is a Little Rock author andrecipient of the National Magazine Award.

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I enjoy photography and cats, and the people who enjoy photography and cats. Politics has become a second or third interest now that Tom Delay is going to jail and the GopPigS have lost the Congress. Even with the other big-business party, the Democrats, shape-shifting and pretending to stop the war, politics is a swamp that one should avoid.

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